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Then the mast was unstepped and with the other fittings laid aside, while Tom Bodger had procured a basket of tools and the wood necessary for the repairs, and the little crowd of fishermen formed themselves into a smoking party, sitting upon upturned boats, fish boxes and buckets, to discuss the damage and compare it with that sustained by other boats as far back as they could remember.
But in an hour or so he felt weary. The sea had slowly risen so that an occasional dash of water flew over the bow whenever he headed in the least to windward. "What is the use of tiring myself out?" he thought at last. "It don't make any difference where I go, or whether I go at all." So he unstepped his mast, stowed it in the boat's bottom, and lay down on the sail.
The boat's sails were lowered, and, if it could have been done, the mast would have been unstepped and pitched overboard; the oars were got out, and the boat approached the side of the frigate. Numerous friendly hands were ready to heave ropes for their assistance from various parts of the sides, from the chains and ports.
She alone, among passing ships, would be scouring the sea with incessant vigilance, and it behooved them, now as ever, not to attract her attention. They were burning wood, so there was no smoke, and the mast was unstepped. Yet the hours of daylight were tortured by constant fear. Even Iris was glad when the darkness came and they were hidden. At midnight a curious misfortune befell them.
Not a moment was lost, the sail was lowered, the mast unstepped, and the oars got out, with a speed which showed how urgent was the occasion. Archie, who did not feel confidence in his power to manager her now in such a sea, took his seat by the man on the stroke thwart, and double banked his oar.
When there was no favourable wind the mast was unstepped and lashed on the outside of the boat under the rowlocks. Often for days together only the oars were used. This was specially the case in river routes.
The revenue men drew back and sheathed their cutlasses, and laid down their guns; some looked with terror at one another, and some at their dead commander. His body lay across the heel of the mast, which had been unstepped at his order; and a heavy drip of blood was weltering into a ring upon the floor.
The monstrosity of the idea stood fully revealed only now on that beach where there was nothing but sand, nothing but rocks, nothing but gulls. Close in now Bompard let go the sheet and they unstepped the mast, the boat rocking in the trough of the swell. Then they got the oars out.
A slender mast, which may be unstepped in a minute, rises from about the centre of this platform, to give support to a very simple sail, now universally made of white cotton cloth, but formerly of mats."
The masts were unstepped, and a few boughs, which were quickly cut, were stuck into the sand on either side of her, to hide her from view. Lord Reginald had now time more narrowly to watch the proceedings of the ship. Having come directly off the bay she hove to. "She has lowered a boat," he exclaimed.
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